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Rushdie’s Memoir Title Pays Tribute to a Pair of Fellow Authors

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Rushdie’s Memoir Title Pays Tribute to a Pair of Fellow Authors

By Scott Heller April 11, 2012 2:30 pmApril 11, 2012 2:30 pm

Salman Rushdie’s coming memoir about his years in hiding has a title, and it requires a little explanation.

“Joseph Anton,” as the book is called, was Mr. Rushdie’s alias during the decade when he went underground after the 1989 publication of his novel “The Satanic Verses” led Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini to issue a fatwa calling for his death. The order was lifted in 1998.

Asked to create an identity that could be used by British police protecting him, “I made up a name from the first names of Conrad and Chekhov,” two of his favorite writers, Mr. Rushdie explained in a statement. “I made it the title of the book because it always felt very strange to be asked to give up my name, I was always uncomfortable about it, and I thought it might help dramatize, for the reader, the deep strangeness and discomfort of those years.”

Random House is publishing “Joseph Anton: A Memoir” on Sept. 18. The 656-page book will be Mr. Rushdie’s 16th, including 11 novels. He has been working with archivists at Emory University, where his papers and computer records are housed. In an event on digital scholarship in March, he told an Emory audience, “This archive is nostalgic for me, and in the specific case of the memoir I was going back to try to create, it was essential.”

Correction: April 11, 2012An earlier version of this post, using information from a publicist, misstated the number of books Mr. Rushdie has written.